


My England, My Love

by Isis



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Future Fic, Gen, Historical References, Prophetic Visions, Supernatural Elements, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: On his deathbed, King Alfred is granted a vision of the future.





	My England, My Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dottore_polidori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottore_polidori/gifts).



> This story is set in the interstices of S3E9. Thanks to Vae for beta reading.

On his bed lay Alfred, his breathing laboured. Uhtred had accepted his pardon, and had at the last accepted his charge as well: to safeguard Edward as he became King, to shepherd England as it became a reality. Uhtred had sworn to remain in Winchester. That was the important thing. 

Uhtred was there, and then he wasn’t. Ælswith was there, and Alfred smiled to himself, hearing her voice. Their marriage so many years ago had united Mercia with Wessex, the first small step toward the England of his dream. It was right that she was with him now, at the end. 

Ælswith spoke to him about Edward’s bride and her father, and hoarsely he agreed: show them the Chronicle, make them invested in the future of Wessex. Make them care about this land, this God-given place of green fields and chalk cliffs, of the rowan and ash, the hare and the stag, the bounty Providence had granted to them all. Then her voice tightened as she spoke against Uhtred, and Alfred let her words wash over him like salt waves rolling against the shore. It was not that he did not love her. It was only that she did not understand the great scope of what must be done, the compromises and the sacrifices.

The knowledge that Uhtred would be there until Edward was crowned king had eased something in his body as well as his mind. The pain had diminished, though he knew that it did not bode his recovery. It was only that he was not battling the illness as he had been, not hurling his remaining strength against its indifferent fortifications. He had fought, as fiercely as he had fought the marauding Danes, for the precious time he would need to ensure the survival of Wessex and of his dream. He was done fighting. He had done what he could do. 

The room seemed to go very bright, and he closed his eyes against the light. Perhaps he slept, and then he dreamed; but it did not feel like a dream to him, when he opened his eyes in a room that was not his own. 

“Lord King? You have rested well?” 

He turned his head. A manservant he did not know helped him to rise, though it seemed to him it was much easier than it ought to have been, much easier than it had been earlier that day. He did not recognize his clothing, nor the robe that the servant wrapped around his shoulders. 

He intended to ask what this place was and how he had come to it, but what came out of his mouth was: “Very well. Is it time?”

“Yes, Lord, and they are gathered in the hall.”

 _Who is gathered?_ he wanted to ask. But the words would not come to his lips. Instead he felt himself nod, and then, to his own surprise, he strode out of the room.

He marvelled at his easy steps, the confident set of his shoulders. He was infirm with his sickness, was he not? His traitorous bowels had eaten away at themselves day after day, and it had been many months since he’d been able to consume anything more substantial than broth. When he had talked to Uhtred that morning, he could barely stand on his own. How was it that he now walked without leaning on his wife or his priest?

Guards he didn’t recognize dipped their heads as he walked out of the room where he had lain, then walked alongside him. Their booted feet rang on the stone floor of the corridor, an unfamiliar corridor in an unfamiliar building. Somehow he knew where to go, though he was not certain why or how he knew this.

It was a dream, and yet not a dream. He turned his head to look through a stone archway into a courtyard garden; the lush green grass spilled around bright flowers, and a serving girl plucked herbs for the kitchen. He frowned. Was it not October? Edward was being married in October. But Edward was being married in Winchester, and he could see this was not Winchester, either.

“Lord,” murmured a tall priest, and Alfred stopped in front of him. 

“Yes?”

“The kings are gathered. They wait only for you.”

“Then let us begin,” he said, and the priest led him into the room. It was crowded with ealdormen and priests, and a document lay on a writing-desk at the room’s head, neatly scribed, with room for signatories at the bottom of the page. The men in rich robes who stood by the writing-desk were unfamiliar to him, but they nodded in recognition, as though they knew him. In recognition, and in respect.

“King Constantine,” he found himself saying. It was strange to him how his mouth spoke these words of its own volition. He watched and listened as though he were only a passenger in this body. A man stepped forward, bearded and tall, though he had not the look of the Danes in either his features nor his manner. “King Hywel. King Ealdred. King Owain.” One by one, four men detached themselves from their retainers to bow before him. Kings all, they were, and yet they were bowing before him.

One of the priests stepped forward; a bishop, clearly, wearing a wooden cross chased with silver along its edges. What there was of his hair was grey, and his voice was grave and sonorous as he said, “Gathered here are the kings of Alba, of Deheubarth, of Northumbria and of Strathclyde. Do you now pledge to give no aid to the non-Christian kingdoms in this land? Do you swear yourself to Æthelstan, King of the Anglo-Saxons?”

 _Æthelstan_. The bishop had not named him Alfred – and they had not named him the king of Wessex. Alfred understood, then, that this hale body was not his waking self. This was a dream – or a vision.

Æthelstan was the name Edward had given to his eldest son, the fruit of his youthful dalliance with the common woman he had claimed to have married. Could it be the same child, now a grown man? Surely if it were, the church must have legitimised his birth, for otherwise how could he now be king? And not just Wessex’s king. The bishop had named Æthelstan King of the Anglo-Saxons. That meant that Mercia and Wessex had truly joined together, and perhaps East Anglia as well had been retaken from the Danes.

The kings swore their fealty, and signed the paper that lay on the writing-desk, and Alfred – Æthelstan – clasped each man’s hand in turn. As he did so he noticed, beyond the kings and their priests and other men, a solitary figure at the back of the room watching the ceremony with a thoughtful eye. A tall man, a warrior by his stance, though naturally he carried no weapons here in this solemn place. It was Uhtred. His face was lined, his long hair grey, but the man was clearly his old friend, his old enemy; the man he loved and hated, and trusted above all. As Alfred’s gaze fell upon him, Uhtred looked directly at him; his brows tightened for a moment, and then relaxed, and he smiled. 

The last of the kings made his oath, and then the bishop put the quill into Æthelstan’s hand. “Rex totius Britanniae,” he said. “It is done.”

 _Rex totius Britanniae._ King of all Britain. Alfred clasped the words to his chest as his hand signed Æthelstan’s name.

“Lord King,” said a voice at his side. He turned his head; it was Uhtred, who had worked his way through the crowds. “You have done a great thing. You have united England against the Danes.”

“It was my grandfather’s dream,” said Æthelstan.

“Yes, it was his dream. He would be very proud. And you know, Lord, for a moment there, while you were standing at the table, you looked very like him.”

Whatever Æthelstan said next, Alfred did not hear. The room had gone bright again, and the sounds around him fell away, replaced by the distant murmur of Ælswith’s voice. His body felt heavy. It was his own body, his old broken body, and he knew he was back in his room, in his bed. 

It had been only a respite; he was yet dying. But he had been granted a gift of grace that was worth more to him than any prize he had won in life. 

“My England,” he murmured. “My love.” 

England would live. With a joyous heart, he gave himself up to the radiance of his Creator.

**Author's Note:**

> The meeting of kings described in this story occurred at Eamont Bridge, near Penrith, on July 12, 927. Alfred died on October 26, 899.


End file.
